The Holborn Restaurant Luncheon - Thursday, 29 July 1920
The Holborn Restaurant Luncheon - Thursday, 29 July 1920 is an article written by Christopher Roden published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 4, 1993).
This documented account describes the farewell luncheon held at the Holborn Restaurant on 29 July 1920 in honour of Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife before their Australian spiritualist tour, reproducing the illuminated address and key speeches. It contextualises the event within Conan Doyle's evangelistic mission and quotes his own retrospective comments from Wanderings of a Spiritualist.
The Holborn Restaurant Luncheon
Sir Arthur and Lady Conan Doyle were the guests of honour at a Luncheon given by the Spiritualists of the United Kingdom in the Royal Venetian Chamber of the Holborn Restaurant, Kingsway, London on Thursday, 29 July 1920: just two weeks before ACD's departure for his Australian crusade.
The assembled guests enjoyed a five course dinner, which included turbot and roasted chicken, before hearing toasts. The toast to 'Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Lady Doyle' was proposed by Dr Abraham Wallace; that to 'The Spiritualist Societies here and Overseas' by the Rev. Walter Wynn. The response to the latter was made by Ernest W. Oaten, Vice-President of the Spiritualist's National Union. Between the toasts, Mr H. W. Engholm presented an illuminated address to Sir Arthur and Lady Conan Doyle. The upper portion of the address, which is reproduced in reduced form on the menu card for the event, reads as follows:
- We the undersigned present at the Farewell Luncheon to SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE & LADY DOYLE desire to record our feelings of admiration and affectionate regard towards them both — To you, SIR ARTHUR, we offer our gratitude for the heroic and self abnegating work you have carried on so long as the Missionary of what you have well termed the NEW REVELATION, the message of Spiritual Consolation and Enlightenment divinely inspired at the beginning of the new epoch of the world's history
- To you, LADY DOYLE, we offer our tribute of appreciation and regard for the noble way in which you have supported your husband's work, always at his side with true devotion to him and to the cause he so devotedly serves
- We wish you both every happiness and success in your journey to Australia and New Zealand, there to carry on the great mission to humanity, and earnestly hope that we may give you all our congratulations on your return.
- Our good wishes and most affectionate thoughts go with you
- LONDON. July 29th, A.D. 1920.
Those present at the luncheon appended their signatures to the address. In Wanderings of a Spiritualist (Ch. 1), ACD remarks:
It was a wonderful gathering, and I only wish I could think that my own remarks rose to the height of the occasion. However, I did my best and spoke from my heart. I told how the Australian visit had arisen, and I claimed that the message that I would carry was the most important that the mind of man could conceive, implying as it did the practical abolition of death, and the reinforcement of our present religious views by the actual experience of those who have made the change from the natural to the spiritual bodies... Then with a sudden impulse I called upon those in the audience who were prepared to swear that they had had a similar experience (spoken face to face with friends or relatives who had passed over] to stand up and testify. The Times next day said 250 out of 290 and I am prepared to accept that estimate.
Reproduction (reduced) of the upper portion of the Illuminated Address presented to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Lady Doyle, to which those present at the Luncheon, appended their signatures.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
